The Wedding Countdown Read Online Free Page B

fascinating and I study the French manicured nails with great intensity. I’m not psychic but I knew today was going to end up this way. In the past my parents have been fantastic at rebuffing all the jibes, sticking up for me and reassuring the gossip-mongers that Amelia will settle down, one day very soon, and, for your kind information, that will be just as soon as our good daughter completes her studies. They trust me and they have always been sure the time will come when I prove my undying loyalty to them and to the rest of the family by marrying exactly whom I’m asked to.
    But this really chokes me up because I love my parents to bits and I’ve spent the last few years working my butt off to make them proud. Straight A-starred GCSEs and A grades at A-level, and now a really good degree. Yet none of this is ever enough and it seems the only way I will ever prove myself a worthwhile daughter is by marrying.
    I can’t win.
    ‘You’ve graduated, Mills beti ,’ continues my mum, sipping her drink thoughtfully. ‘It’s time we started to think seriously about your future.’
    ‘I’ve been thinking about that, too,’ I say. I haven’t yet told my parents, but my friend Nish and I applied to GupShup , the cool Asian glossy magazine, for internships. We submitted a joint piece on Muslim-Hindu friendship and amazingly the editor liked it so much we’ve both been accepted. This is the chance of a lifetime, a golden opportunity for me to prove I’ve got what it takes to be a journalist. The trouble is GupShup is based in London – and moving there, to a city on a par with Sodom and Gomorrah as far as my parents are concerned, is not quite in line with my promise to marry now I am officially Amelia Ali BA Hons.
    So I can honestly say I’ve thought of nothing else but my future for weeks now. However, I have a nasty feeling I’m not thinking along the same lines as my parents. I’m in a parallel universe. 
    ‘Hello, Auntie Hamida. Hello, Mills.’ The adenoidal voice at my shoulder makes me start. I’m so caught up in dreams of London I failed to notice Kabir sidle up to us. Mind you, he’s at least three inches shorter than me, and I’m only five three, so I can be forgiven. The sour taint of body odour should have alerted me sooner so I could have escaped to the bogs.
    ‘Can I say, Mills, you are looking especially lovely today,’ breathes Kabir heavily. ‘My mother says you designed that outfit yourself.’
    Fan-flipping-tastic. Now Auntie Bee is busy plotting. She’ll have me betrothed to Kermit before the bride and groom depart.
    Uh-oh.
    Auntie Bee is smiling at us encouragingly, nudging my father to gaze over in our direction. Even my mother is looking thoughtful. Time is slipping through my hands like mercury.
    I’d better get thinking fast.
    Very, very fast indeed.
     

Chapter 3
    By the time Daddy- ji swings the Mercedes into our drive the sun is a scarlet fingernail above the dark rooftops. Fizz, Roma and I are squashed like proverbial sardines into the back of the car, and although it will be bliss not to have Roma’s bony hip digging into my thigh, part of me wishes the journey could go on for ever. My eyes are heavy but my heart is heavier still because I know what I’m going to have to do. With a sigh I pluck my iPod headphones from my ears, plunging abruptly into the Ali family’s deconstruction of Tara’s wedding.
    ‘You’d have thought Auntie Zeenat would have spent more on her clothes; she looked so last shaadi season,’ Fizz is saying, opening the car door and uncoiling her long slim legs. ‘Sanaubar looked like a giant bogey in those green shalwars .’
    I’m glad I’ve had my music to listen to. To hear Fizz dissect the family’s dress sense, or rather lack of it, all the way back to Saltaire would have been exhausting.
    ‘When I get married,’ continues Fizz, tossing hair as glossy as a thoroughbred’s mane, ‘I’m going to have my dress designed by Stella